DeKALB | Whoever said defense wins games was right.

After dropping decisions to SIU and Loyola during the break, the NIU men’s basketball team opened conference play with a dominating 75-51 win over Toledo, Saturday afternoon at the Convocation Center.

The 24-point margin of victory is the largest in head coach Ricardo Patton’s two year tenure at NIU, and the 51 points scored by the Rockets have been the smallest amount scored by an NIU opponent in the 2008-09 season.

Despite not having played a game since Dec. 20, the Huskies came out strong, pulling away from the Rockets early with a 20-5 lead in the first 10 minutes of play.

“I was really looking forward to seeing the team play after the practices we had over the break,” Patton said of his team. “We had some really good practices where our main focus was on defense. We didn’t spend one second on offensive drills, and I think the guys realized today that there is a reward for playing on the defensive end.”

Patton’s strategy proved effective as the team held Toledo star Tyrone Kent to a 6-21 shooting performance, where the senior only hit one of 11 three-point attempts. The Huskies also forced 19 turnovers and tallied nine steals against a team who has only won one of their last 23 road contests.

“There’s no way Tyrone Kent can go 6-21, 1-11 behind the arc and us still win a basketball game,” said Toledo head coach Gene Cross. “There’s no way that [guard] Jonathan Amos can have eight turnovers and us still win a basketball game. Their defense was good, but we were just as bad as they were good.”

On the offensive side of the ball, four Huskies scored in double-digit figures. Sophomore Jake Anderson led the pack with 20 points, followed by senior Sean Smith (16), freshman Mike DiNunno (14), and sophomore Sean Kowal (11). Anderson and junior Najul Ervin led the team in rebounds, both grabbing seven boards.

“This win was important because it gives our team better confidence,” Anderson said. “We had a tough preseason schedule, and that made us feel like we could go into the conference today and make some noise.”

With a defensive mindset in tow, the Huskies kept the Rockets to a 34.7 shooting percentage from the field, the lowest by an opponent this season. Toledo was also limited to hitting only two of 21 tries for a season low 9.5 three-point percentage. NIU hit 7-14 from behind the arc, and went 28-55 from the field.

“They had three weeks off and obviously they came out hungry and ready to play,” Cross said.

“They made us come out flat in the beginning, and from there we couldn’t get anything going.”

Prior to the team’s first conference game, the Huskies posted two home losses over the break. The first came Dec. 17 against SIU with a 73-58 defeat, and three days later the team dropped a 72-62 decision to Loyola.